Reading Lists

Music and Literature Reading List

by  Michelle Johnson

Hanif Abdurraqib

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays 

Two Dollar Radio, 2017

 

 

 

Erica Dawson

When Rap Spoke Straight to God: A Poem

Tin House, 2018

 

 

 

Virginie Despentes

Vernon Subutex 1

Trans. Frank Wynne

MacLehose Press, 2017

 

 

Mathias Énard

Compass

Trans. Charlotte Mandell

New Directions, 2017

 

 

Aja Gabel

The Ensemble

Riverhead Books, 2018

 

 

 

 

Shayla Lawson

I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean

Saturnalia, 2018

 

 

 

Pam Muñoz Ryan 

Echo 

Narrators: Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, Andrews MacLeod, & Rebecca Soler

Scholastic, 2015

 

 

Haruki Murakami

1Q84

Trans. Jay Rubin & Philip Gabriel

Harvill Secker, 2011

 

 

Elena Passarello 

Let Me Clear My Throat: Essays 

Sarabande Books, 2012

 

 

 

 

Michael Robbins

 “Walkman” from Robbins’s Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music

Simon & Schuster 2017

 

 

 

Vikram Seth

An Equal Music

Broadway Books, 1999

 

 

 

 

Tracy K. Smith

“Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?” and “Alternate Take: Levon Helm”

Life on Mars

Graywolf, 2011

 

 

 

Greg Tate 

Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader 

Duke University Press, 2016

 

 

 

 

Niall Williams

As It Is in Heaven

Warner Books, 1999

 

 

 

 

Kevin Young

Brown: Poems

Knopf, 2018

 

 

 

 

Zoran Živković

Seven Touches of Music

Trans. Alice Copple-Tošić

Aio, 2006

Michelle Johnson is WLT's managing and culture editor.

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